Police Review System Responds to Scrutiny, Holds No Hearings
New member Selection Raises Questions as Board Considers Process Changes

Meanwhile, the CRC held no new hearings, continued to tinker with their internal protocols, and made slow progress on work groups. They created a long-awaited committee to look at recommendations by the Police Assessment Resource Center (PARC) about police shootings and deaths in custody. Two new CRC members were confirmed by City Council in late November. For the second time in two years, Marcella Red Thunder was not re-appointed to her seat (and then resigned before finishing her new term); Bob Ueland, a fixture on PIIAC and the CRC since the mid-1990s, decided not to reapply.

The new members: family attorney Mark Johnson was sworn in after the Council hearing; mediator Joann Jackson will be sworn in at the January CRC meeting.

CRC's community outreach meetings have continued to draw little public interest, and their guest speakers continue to present police programs without addressing accountability issues.

Preliminary Report Makes Auditor Defensive, Audit Himself

Luna-Firebaugh's report was mostly about survey responses she had received from complainants (325) and officers (295). It shows civilians with a satisfaction rate of 10 to 33% (though higher--33 to 60%--for those who went to mediation), and officers rating outcome as satisfactory 50% of the time. These numbers roughly correspond to the numbers the IPR printed in its annual reports in 2002, 2003 and 2004. The 2005 and 2006 annual reports have yet to be released as of December, 2007--Blackmer's response notes "we resolved the personnel matter" and expect the 2007 report by April, 2008.

Blackmer opens by lecturing the consultant about her methods for gathering information, and later offers disparaging remarks about the citizen groups she has contacted (Portland Copwatch, the League of Women Voters and the NW Constitutional Rights Center).

He repeats the misleading statistic about police shootings being down because the IPR hired PARC to conduct their reviews (see PPR #41) and adds that Use of Force complaints are now down thanks to the Use of Force Report they released earlier this year (PPR #42). He claims that a reduction from 100 or more excessive force complaints to 70 is a "remarkable accomplishment" for which he takes credit. Could it be that people are complaining less because they don't want their excessive force concerns to be handled as "Service Complaints"?

Blackmer clearly spent hours on the response, citing sources, statistics, and even suggesting a mathematical correction in one place. His ultimate complaint, which was parroted by IPR Director Leslie Stevens at the October CRC meeting, is that the assessment isn't being done using US General Accounting Office audit practices. This ignores Luna-Firebaugh's credentials as someone who has headed up two police review boards (Berkeley and San Diego County), was lead investigator for another (San Francisco), teaches law at the University of Arizona, helped review the oversight systems in Albuquerque and Cincinatti, provided legal representation for sheriff's deputies and currently works with Native American tribal police.

Members of the CRC also complained in October that Luna-Firebaugh did not seem interested in speaking with them, though she had given them all her contact information in July and already spoken with Chair Hank Miggins (for two hours) and member Red Thunder.

-We have the preliminary report and Blackmer's reply on our website. The final report is due in January. Be prepared to respond to the report--call us at 503-236-3065.-

New Memberships Raise Question of Selection Process

When Red Thunder was passed over for her seat, the CRC was again left with no Native American representation. No Latinos have been on the board since 2005. The ordinance says "appointments should be made that will cause the group to best reflect the demographic make-up of the community" (3.21.080 [A][6]).

New Findings Run Counter to Logic, National Standards

IAD Captain John Tellis told the CRC at their November meeting that the two findings were changed because the police and IPR were spending too much time trying to tell the difference between them. IPR Director Stevens backed him up, adding that she talked with the Chief and the promotions board, and that they don't consider the differences between "Insufficient," "Unfounded," and "Exonerated" (complaint happened, but was within policy) when looking at an officer's record. We believe that if that is the case, the discipline and promotion systems need to be changed, not the findings. Nearly every other review board we have information about (San Diego County, San Francisco, Omaha...e.g.) separates Unfounded from Insufficient Evidence (also known as "Not Sustained").

In a number of cases, a citizen has appealed their finding and the CRC hasn't had enough evidence to prove their allegations, but found enough evidence to change the finding to "Insufficient Evidence." This happened 5 times at the June meeting, and the Bureau accepted all those findings (PPR #42). Thus, one of the only tools available to the CRC to show the complainant that they are at least believed on a level with the officer, is being taken away.

We have also encouraged the City for years to adopt findings used at San Francisco's Office of Citizen Complaints, which are "Policy Failure," "Training Failure," and "Supervisory Failure."

Cancelled Appeal Raises Serious Issues

The CRC held a discussion with the Internal Affairs Division (IAD) in the absence of a hearing, which raised issues about confidential medical information that hadn't been waived by the appellant. Precinct Commander Mike Reese couldn't remember whether the officers, responding to a person in psychological crisis, were trained in Crisis Intervention Team training. Reese also admitted that he didn't know at the time he made the finding that the IAD investigator merely talked to a medical staffer to form an opinion that the woman's wrist was broken prior to the encounter with police. Clearly this case needed recon-sideration, but without an appellant, no changes or review will be done.

Quarterly Report Shows Sample of Cases

The IPR's fall 2007 report is at portlandonline.com/auditor/index.cfm?a=174936&c=40870

Guest Presenters Ignore Constitutional Concerns

Smith stated that when young people gather in large groups, weapons come out and there are gunshots. He admitted that wasn't always the case and he couldn't say how often it was--or whether there had been gunshots on the days officers conducted the curfew sweeps. The Bureau is still able to enforce the law, but hasn't done so since spring break.

The other presenters, Officer Barry Hosier and Lt. Eric Brown, talked about a program in which police educate landlords how to report on bad tenants, and tenants how to call police on one another. They could not name the Community Alliance of Tenants or any tenants' rights group that might have offered another point of view, and didn't understand that people who weren't convicted of any crime (and were visited by police due to angry neighbors, anonymous tips or police grudges) could suffer if Constitutional rights are not considered.

Tow Policy Report Released

The recommendations include: to give officers more discretion in some situations not to tow cars; to emphasize an existing directive on assisting motorists (which came into being because of a PIIAC recommendation); to give Tri-Met vouchers to stranded motorists/passengers; to mention valuable items in the property receipts; to remind officers they can call a car's owner if it has been stolen and recovered; and to find better ways to handle people and their belongings when their car is also where they live. The one area on which the Chief waffled was the suggestion to look at tows for possible bias, even though the Work Group heard multiple accounts of police asking people--in particular poor people and people of color, "haven't I towed your car before?" The recommendation mentioned analyzing "economic status, race, neighborhoods and officers" for tows. Chief Sizer felt it would be difficult to fund, for officers to determine economic status, and meaningless to identify officers who tow cars more frequently than others. We hope the CRC will push this issue when they present the report to City Council on January 9.

In a separate cover letter from the CRC, our recommendation to charge a sliding scale based on the car's book value is mentioned.

Also:

--The Director updated the protocol the IPR uses to handle Tort Claims (intent to sue notices) as complaints and made proposed changes to the Mediation protocol;

--The Bias Based Policing Work Group decided to analyze 32 cases to look for how the complaints were handled as well as police policies and training that might need changing;

--After Red Thunder moved to change the minutes to more accurately reflect a comment she had made about cultural discomfort she felt around the IPR's practice of providing food for the IPR/CRC but not the public, the board voted 6-1 (with member Loren Eriksson dissenting) to change the minutes. Cultural competency classes, anyone?

For more information contact the IPR at 503-823-0146.

Attorney Disses Review Board After Taser / Threat Incident OK'd

The Mercury reports that in response, IPR Assistant Director Pete Sandrock said six officers have been fired or resigned while under investigation by the IPR in the last two years--but didn't offer any evidence to support his claim.